Officials - NASA: forget about visiting the asteroid, go to the moon

No asteroids, NASA. Only the moon!

This week in the United States must approve a budget for next year for scientific organizations, including NASA. At the same time, it was not without significant surprises , including a significant deviation from the originally proposed long-term program for a flight to Mars.

Initially, the plan contained a clause about visiting an asteroid and transporting it to the lunar orbit with operations to study this object. However, the National Research Council does not consider this stage realistic. The new project has preserved many elements of the old plan, but not all. Also, members of the committee recognize the importance of studying the asteroid, but without linking this stage to a manned expedition to Mars. Officials are also unhappy that the asteroid mission budget is unknown.

Therefore, in the budget allocated by NASA, there is no point about the asteroid . We are not talking about a manned expedition, or unmanned. Instead, officials suggest the space agency to focus its efforts on the moon. Scientists now have to develop a plan for returning to the moon, including such pleasant additions as the creation of habitable modules, testing systems for moon landing and leaving the surface of the moon.
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Perhaps it is on the moon that astronauts will now master the technologies for creating a base that will be useful on Mars. It would not be superfluous, according to the authors of the plan to return to the moon, to begin developing water ice deposits on the Earth’s satellite to obtain their own resources and reduce dependence on supplies from their home planet.



Interestingly, ex-astronaut Leroy Chiao and Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham support the creation of a habitable base on the moon and do not support the plan to launch a manned Mars expedition. According to them, the exact budget of such a mission is still unknown; the United States does not yet have a formal program for sending a man to Mars . All that is - this is a preliminary plan of NASA, which will cost taxpayers a hefty penny.

But a manned expedition to the moon with the base there base - a much more acceptable and less costly option. This view was supported by the ESA. According to Pullham and Chiao, there is a threat that while the United States is developing plans to visit Mars, other countries will unite with China, and begin to work closely on the program of the man’s flight to the moon. The same China announced its intention to establish a base on the natural satellite of the Earth for the next 20 years.

The likelihood that NASA will have to abandon the asteroid mission and instead go first to the moon, and then to Mars is very high. The situation is further complicated by the fact that with the departure of the current president, the United States will have to leave its place and the current head of NASA. So it’s impossible to say exactly how the agency’s plan will change in the near future.

But NASA already has assistants. For example, Lockheed Martin promises to send a man to Mars in 2028, and not in the early 30s.